Delightful Scottish Fiddle Inspired by Short Stories

365: Volume 1 is a truly exquisite double album of instrumental music composed by Scottish fiddler Aidan O’Rourke. He’s joined by Kit Downes on piano and harmonium.

365: Volume 1 was inspired by the short stories of James Robertson, one of Aidan O’Rourke’s favorite Scottish authors. Robertson wrote a short story each day for a year, and every story had exactly 365 words. Aidan O’Rourke decided to do something similar and composed a tune every day for 1 year, each one connected to a story from James’s collection.

Although the plan is to record all 365 tunes, 365: Volume 1 features the first set of highlights. The musicianship is superb. The wonderful music is rooted in Scottish folk music tradition, although Aidan O’Rourke goes beyond, incorporating classical and jazz elements.

The nicely-packaged two CD set includes a booklet with all the stories that inspired the recordings and the date they were composed.

Author: Angel Romero

Angel Romero y Ruiz has been writing about world music music for many years. He founded the websites worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. Angel produced several TV specials for Metropolis (TVE) and co-produced “Musica NA”, a music show for Televisión Española (TVE) in Spain that featured an eclectic mix of world music, fusion, electronica, new age and contemporary classical music. Angel also produced and remastered world music albums, compilations and boxed sets for Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Music of the World.